With only a few days left in the legislative session, several bills still hang in the balance. One bill the Colorado Chamber has been aggressively fighting continues to move through the Senate, and we’re asking members to help us stop this proposal before the clock runs out.
That bill is HB 1294 – the air permitting bill that would create costly litigation and disrupt the progress the business community has made collaboratively with state environmental agencies to reduce emissions.
The bill was recently paired down from its original form to remove some of the problematic regulatory provisions in the proposal, but it is still deeply flawed beyond repair. Specifically, it creates a new non-scientific legislative committee to regulate air quality, prevents new permitting of facility expansions and improvements that increase emissions in any way, opens the door to costly lawsuits by encouraging baseless complaints, and imposes tight new regulations that will increase costs and disrupt predictability for industry.
The bill is set to be heard in the Senate Transportation & Energy Committee TODAY and is expected to move quickly to the Senate Floor. The Colorado Chamber has set up a grassroots tool allowing you to easily contact your state senator to ask them to vote NO.